October Animation Tidbits [#4]

Another round of tidbits…

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An adaptation of Captain Underpants has been on DreamWorks' docket for a long while, and given its commercial potential, it's understandably moving forward. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that a director has been attached, and a writer. Rob Letterman, who co-directed Shark Tale and Monsters vs. Aliens - will helm it, Nicholas Stoller (writer of The Muppets and its upcoming sequel) will pen the screenplay. Seems like the right duo for this kind of film.

Of course, when I was young, the books were a staple at my elementary school's annual book fairs and I imagine they were huge with every other school too. While I didn't really bother with the series back then, it'd be interesting to see how it's pulled off in feature-length form. It will be DreamWorks' first potty humor-loaded flick since the Shrek 2 days, which will make it a draw for kids and fans... Anyone else? Maybe not, making it kind of a gamble for DreamWorks.

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Even though this film is not out until next summer, a teaser is already up... Yep, Planes: Fire and Rescue...

I will admit, it's nice that this won't be Cars with airplanes like the first film was (I didn't see Planes and I don't really plan to), plus the animation does look like nice for a roughly $50 million DisneyToon production.



Yeah, surprisingly, it doesn't look half bad. Yes, the Planes films are mostly for kids, they are pretty harmless as a result. I thought the first one looked positively lame, this one just looks... Okay. Not that I plan on seeing it or anything, but please oh pretty please Disney, this stuff shouldn't be theatrical. Keep it out of the cinemas!

Other than that, its existence doesn't really bother me in the slightest. What bothers me, personally, is how furious and enraged some people are getting over this franchise. Listening to some people, you would've thought that the Cars series is the worst thing since cancer or something...

Whoever is angry needs to consider that Pixar isn't making these films, neither is Disney Animation. They've both got cool stuff in the works, these little cash grab flicks aren't really affecting them or animation that much; why worry about this when you can anticipate something like Big Hero 6 or Inside Out?

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Well, whaddaya know? More Frozen stills, straight from Stitch Kingdom...

All fine-looking, and they give you a good idea of what this film is like. That, and the current trailer that's out. That being said, the stills showcase the fine animation and art direction. It does have a bit of a Tangled-esque look, but of course it'll be different in the story department and what not.

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Some reviews for Reel FX's debut film Free Birds are in… And they are unfortunately not so positive… (Though it'll be interesting to see where it lands, I thought the first teaser had some pretty funny bits.)

Rotten Tomatoes holds three rotten reviews, plus recent screening results have been pretty negative. A real shame, because I'm rooting for Reel FX and I do hope this one makes them enough so that they can embrace the risky stuff that they have in their pipeline.

I figured for a while that Free Birds was meant to be a sort of safe film, one that would do well enough and secure them enough financial backing to make The Book of Life, which sounds intriguing from what I've been hearing. Of course, as you all may know, they have two other films in the works: An adaptation of the not-so-family-friendly Beasts of Burden and a rather dark-sounding film called W.I.S.H. Police, the latter appropriately being from the directors of Nocturna.

I have a feeling that Reel FX's future works will be more akin to Rango (especially The Book of Life) and LAIKA's films, rather than stuff from Sony Animation or Illumination. They seem to have that ambition, so we'll see how that all plays out - cute family-friendly turkey movie notwithstanding.

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What's your take on a Captain Underpants movie? What do you think of the Planes: Fire and Rescue teaser? Bad? Evil? Okay? Meh? What do you think of the Frozen stills? Do you think Free Birds will be a dud? Or surprisingly decent? Sound off below!

October Animation Tidbits

Tidbits, tidbits...

We got our first official trailer for Rio 2, after two teasers...



Cute. Colorful. That's about it, really. No doubt the family audiences will eat it up next April, and the plot at least isn't a rehash of the original. I'm just on the fence about this one. Also, what's with Blue Sky's recent iPod product placement?

But oh well, Nigel is still funny.

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Evan Goldberg dropped some more details on Sausage Party, his upcoming R-rated animated collaboration with Seth Rogen...

First off, he says it's an "existential mock-Pixar movie".

"... We are very, very proud of it. It's our opus. It's like Mr. Holland's Opus! It’s our take on a Pixar movie. It is very, very R rated."

It's all in good fun, though, as he also said, "I wish there were fifty Pixar movies every year. But listen, someone should take those motherf*ckers down a notch. Those high and mighty bastards. We're mocking all animated movies, with a special eye on Pixar."

A mockery of the current American animated feature landscape sounds ideal for an R-rated animated film, but here's hoping that the film is a fun send-up and will also be really funny regardless of any lowbrow or juvenile humor. This will be what Shrek almost was, a great parody of what's big in animation right now.

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Also, Frozen images... Boy do they look stunning!

Elsa's kingdom... With a Mike Giaimo sky! He's the art director of this film, and he was originally going to direct it back when it was actually called The Snow Queen. It's much like Pocahontas' color scheme, which gravitated towards heavy blues, lavenders and purples.

This one is just stunning... It's my favorite of the bunch. The pointedness of everything combined with the icy atmosphere. It just perfectly sums up Elsa's character.

These images alone make me anticipate this film even more now, not some poorly-edited slapdash trailer that assumes that audiences can't sit through two quiet minutes of anything animated. Of course, we know that Disney marketing won't make Frozen look like a grand must-see event spectacle, instead opting to bombard you with jokes, silly snowmen and one-liners. Like I said in my post regarding spoilers in Pixar trailers, I'll just stick to images and the teasers for these films and quite frankly... I'm fine with that.

Where did these images come from? Disney Russia's Facebook page... Why not Disney's other pages for different countries? If they don't come the other pages (American, European, etc.), I'll only shake my head in disbelief. At this point, I believe Disney's ever-so-wise marketing department would do that.

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What's your take on the new Rio 2 trailer? What do you think of the Frozen images? What do you think of Sausage Party and the writers' plans to mock Pixar films?

Sound off below!